unrealfandomcom-20200223-history
Unreal Wiki:Manual of Style
This page contains the Manual of Style for the Unreal Wiki. It describes in which style articles at this wiki should be written when editing or creating pages. In the interests of keeping the articles as clean, concise and professional as possible, all wiki contributors should strive for consistency of content. That is, articles of a similar type should follow a similar layout in order to be consistent. As any experienced editor can tell you, some things can be written dozens of different (and, arguably, correct) ways. Inevitably, everyone has a different opinion on which way is best. Without some kind of established policy on these issues, wiki articles quickly become untidy and inconsistent as each contributor chooses to do things their way, and this may also give rise to arguments between contributors about which way is best. The Manual of Style—a collection of guidelines and policies—is an effort to overcome these problems by providing an itemized list of examples of the right way to write articles. All of the below guidelines can be assumed to be officially sanctioned unless otherwise stated. Opinions and feedback on these guidelines is welcome in this article's talk page. Please learn how a wiki works before starting editing here, it will help us a lot! Registering Please consider registering before adding anything. It's simple, fast and free, and it is much easier to communicate with you that way. It is not mandatory, but heavily advised. General *Always insert pictures in "thumb" format, such as (but not if the picture is in an infobox). When doing so, be sure to add a proper caption like . *Refer to the Unreal universe from an in-universe perspective. Always use third-person writing. *Never use the second person singular (therefore "you" or other expressions) in the main namespace. Even if most of the people reading this wiki are players, an encyclopedia does not directly talk to its reader. So prefer "the player" or the playable character name (e.g. "Prisoner 849") or any other relevant adjective or other phrasing (such as the passive voice, "The Krall must be quickly killed" being better than "The player must quickly kill the Krall"). A sentence does not require to feature the word "you" to be in the second person singular, so be careful how you phrase things. *Refrain from using slashes whenever possible. Instead, work the word "or" into the sentence, or figure out some other way of stating it. *The spoiler tag should always be at the top of the article, not inside, where it could create confusion to the reader. *Quoting relevant game dialogue at the top of an article is common, but please avoid adding any quote that mentions the subject without first considering if it will in fact add to the article in question; it is not that every single article should feature a quote. A good quote should add meaning to the article. It should sum up the topic at hand or at least strongly refer to it. *Refrain from overusing capitalization in section headings whenever possible. Rather, use Behind the scenes or See also instead of Behind the Scenes or See Also . *Before adding any trivia facts to an article, consider if the fact is both useful to know and fully informative or a complete thought. If it is not, try to work it properly into the article somewhere or do not add it. Fanon This wiki is not a place for fanon. Speculation and fan-made information will be deleted as soon as it is noticed. If you think that the info you added is canon, please provide a reliable source. Images *Add only canon images, not screenshots from customized/tweaked canon games or mods. *Images from other sources, i.e. BeyondUnreal or Liandri Archives is allowed, but just ensure that you give proper attribution using the appropriate copyright tag in the image's description. *Avoid uploading pictures you don't have a purpose for, unless they can add to a subject gallery. Before uploading, read all the instructions given on . Disregard of them will have you blocked and your picture deleted. *See for more information on image use. Article layouts References and external links *List all references inside the article text, by using Text. It will automatically show at the end of the article if the tag is already included under the subtitle "External links and references". *All external links—that is, all links that direct a user to a website that is outside of the wiki—should also be added under this section. *Aside from the references and links, there is therefore nothing else to write under this title. If you wish to include something there, it will definitely better fit under "Behind the scenes" or "Trivia". *More info on the references subject can be found on Wikipedia, even though we don't closely follow the same guidelines. *See also . Past or present tense? When writing an article, it is often hard to know which tense is most suitable. However, the wiki's guideline is simple: always use the present tense, except in some cases, such as, for instance when the part of an article relates to an even set in the past. Overall, as long as a subject is seen alive or intact in one or more games, it must be referred to in present tense.